9'6" x 13'2" Persian Kashan Rug | Signed Cartouche | Dusty Grey Ivory Floral Field

The weaver of this Persian Kashan rug put a signature cartouche into the top border, which is the mark of a workshop piece rather than an anonymous market weaving. It measures 9'6" x 13'2", hand-knotted in wool on a cotton foundation with a 3/8" pile that still stands evenly across the whole field, and the ends and selvedges are original and intact. The drawing is the quiet side of Kashan: a pale, dusty grey-ivory ground carrying a lobed medallion and an all-over floral vine, rather than the louder red and navy formula. It arrives with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

At the center sits a lobed, shield-shaped medallion built around an 8 petal rosette with a red center, surrounded by tiny cypress-like leaves and paired palmettes that radiate out to four cusped points. Above and below, matching pendants rise on thin stems, and the four corner spandrels repeat the same vocabulary in miniature so the eye reads the layout instantly. What makes the piece is that the medallion is not set on an empty ground: the entire field is filled edge to edge with a scrolling vine system of palmettes, serrated leaves, rosettes and small carnations, all drawn in fine navy outline so the pattern stays legible even at a distance. The main border carries alternating palmettes and open flower heads on a continuous vine, framed by narrow guard stripes of angular flowering sprigs that give the outer edge a crisp architectural frame. The back photograph shows how tight and regular the knotting is behind that drawing, which is what allows curved stems and fine leaf tips to hold their shape.

The Dusty Grey and Ivory Palette

The ground is a dusty grey-ivory, closer to unbleached linen than to white, and within it the medallion and spandrels shift a half tone warmer into pale greige and blush so the layout reads as light on light. Against that pale ground the drawing supplies all the contrast: deep navy and indigo outline every stem and leaf, a clear mid blue fills the small four petal flowers, olive and sage green appear in the leaves, and mustard gold and terracotta rust pick out the palmettes and rosette hearts. Small points of true red, no bigger than a fingernail, sit at the heart of the central rosette and in the border flowers, and those few sparks are what keep the whole surface from going flat. The border runs a touch warmer and sandier than the field, which pushes the pattern inward. The overall effect is a large formal rug that behaves like a neutral: it will sit under grey, greige, cream, walnut or navy furnishings without fighting any of them.

Kashan, the Weaving Town and the Quality of the Work

Kashan sits in central Persia north of Isfahan and has been weaving to a court standard since the Safavid workshops, with soft lustrous local wool and a reputation for disciplined, symmetrical drawing rather than tribal improvisation. Kashan is also the design most Americans have already seen without knowing its name: when you watch Shark Tank there is a Persian Kashan on the floor. This example belongs to the workshop tier of that tradition, signed in the border and woven with enough knots to carry a full all-over vine at room size without the pattern coarsening at the corners. At 9'6" x 13'2" it is a true dining and living room size, one of the harder formats to find signed and in this condition, and buyers shopping 10x13 Persian rugs will recognize how few of them come with a weaver's cartouche and original ends. The wool has kept its sheen, the pile is even end to end, and the rug is ready to go straight onto the floor.